LONDON: Garbage dumping is a trans-continental affair for Britain.

Recyclable waste collected from British homes is illegally dumped on farmlands in Tamil Nadu because it is cheaper to send the rubbish to India than to recycle it properly in the UK.

The waste is dumped in farmland wells and local residents claim it has been going on for the last four years if not longer. Waste from the UK and the US is allegedly being buried in around 10 illegal dumping sites in the state.

An investigation by ITV television channels flagship news programme Tonight has revealed that a tonne of waste that would cost ?148 to recycle in the UK is instead shipped to India on the waste black market for dumping for a mere ?40 a tonne.

Tonights reporter Mark Jordan travelled to Tamil Nadu where along with a local environment body he dug just four feet of one well site to reveal a hidden mountain of British waste including Walkers crisp bags, Sainsburys apple juice, childrens report cards and copies of British newspapers from as recent as this January. It is estimated that this particular well could be up to 30 feet deep.

Nity Jayaraman, an international waste investigator for the past 10 years, who brought the Tonight team to the Indian tips, said: "Nearby is a paper company, its supposed to be importing paper waste and recycling it. And this company gets this waste, takes a little bit of paper from it and the rest of it is pure trash - pure unrecyclable, unusable trash which is just dumped in places like this."

According to Indian law, this kind of trash is considered hazardous waste. "Youre shipping out your garbage, youre shipping out your responsibility. And it violates every law, right from the time that it entered India, its been violating laws because this is import of hazardous waste and the hazardous waste has come in illegally," Jayaraman told Tonight.

All UK councils are required to recycle.

But after householders separate their rubbish and bin workers collect it, councils pass it on to waste firms, who in turn use subcontractors.

They are under no obligation to reveal what they actually do with it.
Britain exports between 12 million and 14 million tonnes of waste a year to be recycled in third world countries. The majority of these exports are legal and above board. However, it is illegal to do so unless the waste has been properly divided into paper, metals, plastics and glass before it leaves the country.

The Environment Agency, which has charged nine companies in recent years for sending unsorted waste abroad, told Tonight: "We dont believe containers of mixed waste are going out now. Having said that there is no room for complacency, if we want to recycle more then we are really dependent on these international markets and its incumbent on all of us to make sure that what we are throwing away and then what is subsequently exported is of the right standard and is wanted by the receiving countries, otherwise basically we set back UK recycling many, many decades.".

Source : DNA